Club at Clear Creek TahoeNevada, USA

Green Keeper: Justin White

Though their first alpine setting, Coore & Crenshaw’s brand of architecture proved a perfect complement to nature in the Sierras.

Everyone benefits when property ends up with the right steward. Morse and Pebble Beach, Keiser and Bandon, and Youngscap and Sand Hills are but three examples whereby both something special was created initially as well as where the foundation was put in place for these iconic destinations to flourish for decades to come. As this relates to Clear Creek, several developers tried for a decade to make the most of a 1,600 acre parcel of land on the Nevada side of Lake Tahoe near Incline Village and Glenbrook. Not until Jim Taylor and his partner Chip Hanly became interested in this south-facing land in 2006 did things turn for the best.

The original developers had various architects including Nicklaus, Norman and Bobby Jones Jr. do routings but none of those projects proceeded. However, a general routing was granted permitting by Douglas County during this process, which is no small accomplishment given its location in the Sierras. Once Taylor and Hanly took control of the project, talks were held with two more lead architect firms but eventually Taylor talked Bill Coore into having a look. Over the phone, Bill Coore explained his reservations to working in a mountain setting including landforms that are typically too severe for good golf and poor soil quality. Nonetheless, he agreed to come up from his base in Arizona and Taylor picked him up from the Reno airport. As Taylor drove Bill Coore up the steeply inclined Highway 50 near the property, he could sense Bill Coore losing interest. After all, Bill Coore was thinking if the site featured slope like this, they would pass on the project as it would mean altering nature beyond a point in which they are comfortable.

After a quick detour to the Club’s Lake House, Bill Coore asked to be dropped at the site at 10:00am and for Taylor to please come pick him up around 5:00pm. Bill Coore‘s initial walk was such that he stayed the next day – and the next – and the next! During his visits in the evenings with Taylor and Hanly, Bill Coore appreciated the obligation that they felt toward showing great respect for the land and in being careful stewards. In addition, when asked by Bill Coore what they wanted from the course, the unhesitating answer back was that they wanted the player refreshed after the day’s first round and eager to play more. Hosting televised events was the furthest thoughts from their mind. Both answers pleased Bill Coore to no end as he was free to create engrossing golf on the ground without wondering what it might look like from a camera crane.

After two more five day trips of just studying the land, Bill Coore finally felt he had found a course and was comfortable to proceed. For its part, Douglas County was quite pleased with Coore & Crenshaw‘s routing as it condensed the course and used nearly ten acres less of land than the routing that they had already approved. Indeed, including the large, first rate practice area, the course only has a total of fifty-five acres of turf. Details were quickly squared away and Coore & Crenshaw‘s talented team with James Duncan as the project manager started shortly thereafter in June, 2007.

Even including this world class practice area, the golf takes up only fifty-five acres of maintained turf. Though Coore calls this ‘the prettiest practice area I have ever seen’, he is quick to point out that club president Mark Sollenberger (an Arizona Hall of Fame golfer) designed it with the help of the Coore & Crenshaw’s talented shapers – Bill and Ben had nothing to do with it. Golfers happily wile away hours here honing various aspects of their game.

In terms of the quality of the soil, this was never the issue that one might expect. Indeed, on his first visit, Ben Crenshaw bent down and grabbed a handful and let it shift through his hands. Appreciating that this ancient soil was a combination of decomposed granite and sand that was five to thirty feet deep around the property, Ben Crenshaw turned to the developers with a gleam in his eyes, exclaiming, ‘This soil is gold!’ Because of its sandy loam qualities, the decision was made to use the site’s natural soil in creating all the tees and push-up greens and to eschew building greens to USGA specifications. Having the right Green Keeper on board was crucial and that was solved when Justin White from The Sand Hills came over and joined the team.

At 1,600 acres, the property at the Club at Clear Creek is clearly expansive. However, humble as always, Bill Coore makes it clear that’s not to say that there were a number of ways to route eighteen holes around the property and have all the holes play well. Of the five architects that had done routings over the past ten years, there were areas of commonality with the final routing that exists today. For instance, the various routings all featured holes roughly where today’s fifteenth and eighteenth holes are. From Coore & Crenshaw‘s perspective, the breakthrough moment in the routing came when they became comfortable in building the dramatically downhill third hole, which nearly takes the golfer from the high to low point on the course in just one hole. This is not a typical Coore & Crenshaw hole but it certainly does make for one of the course’s more memorable drives.

With the routing established, the primary challenge presented to Coore & Crenshaw was in building greens that represent good golf. Greens like the second, fourth, ninth, tenth and fifteenth sit peacefully upon the land today yet required quite a bit of skill and work to make them play properly. Take the second for instance. Placing the green at the base of the rock outcroppings was an easy decision once they committed to building the third hole. However, given the natural back to front pitch of the land, making the green play and look right wasn’t easy. Prop the front portion of the green up too much and it will never appear right to the golfer’s eye from the tee below. However, don’t do enough and golf balls will never find a place to rest and will continually roll off the green’s front. As seen below, the green that was finally constructed visually fits in with its surrounds while still playing well, even when the club permits the greens to run at 12 on the stimp for special events.

The second green may look effortless now but it took a lot of thought and effort to get it to play right. As an aside, the heavy wooden rakes speak as to the attention to detail present at Clear Creek.

The tenth is another green complex of great beauty. Fill was required as Coore & Crenshaw decided to keep pulling the putting surface forward but they tied it off so nicely with the natural grade in the back and surrounds that the golfer can be forgiven for thinking it was a natural site and that Coore & Crenshaw did little. In part because the greens have so much character, the course has no obvious weaknesses. Most courses have three or four transitional holes that lead the player from one part of the property to another with the transitional holes not quite of the same standard as the rest. As we see below, that’s not true here as the holes are all of a high quality rarely found in golf, modern or otherwise.

Holes to Note

First hole, 520 yards, Quiver; Ideal opening holes make the golfer want to get out and play, in part by revealing appealing design attributes that carry through the rest of the holes. In this case, the golfer hits his opening drive over the natural forest floor to a forty-five yard wide fairway that bleeds into the native areas. No two to three inch rough borders this or any fairway – the ball is either on the short grass or the natural forest floor, which is as it should be given that any band of rough would be unnatural/linear in appearance. Up ahead, the green is bunkered only on one side with the short tight grass to the green’s right giving golfers of all ability room to play.

The view from the first tee welcomes the golfer to the Sierras while setting an enticing mood.

Second hole, 180 yards, Rock Garden;Clear Creek is very much a position golf course, in particular with great thought required as to from where the first putt should be struck. Staying below the hole is important, especially at uphill greens like this one which provide the easy opportunity for the architect to incorporate back to front slope (see the sixth green for another such example). In addition to the general slope of the land/green, a Perry Maxwell ‘puff’ exists in the middle section of the green, creating some unusual putting predicaments for those that get out of position. David Zinkand and Jim Craig deserve tons of credit for their work in making the set of greens at Clear Creek so special.

The rock outcroppings provide a distinctive backdrop to the second green.

Third hole, 510 yards, Aerie; At 5,830 feet of elevation, the third tee is the high point on the course. Almost 200 feet below (!) is the green, making it (after the fourth) the lowest green on the course. Though the tee ball is what most remember, traditionalists take equal delight in the open green site and the variety of shots that it accepts.

The sight of a well struck tee ball lingers in the golfer’s mind as he recalls watching it hang in the air seemingly forever. At over fifty-five yards in width, the third fairway needed to be one of the widest on the course as otherwise, it would seem puny and restrictive, undermining the spacious feel that the golfer soaks in while standing on the tee.

The dry ditch that diagonally cuts across the third fairway 100 yards prior to the green is a consideration for anyone who doesnâ€™t get off a good tee ball. Don’t be fooled into under clubbing by the middle bunker as it is twenty paces from the front edge of the green.

Fourth hole, 200 yards, Tuning Fork; Every course has spots where the golfer simply can’t miss it and one of those at Clear Creek is to the right of the fourth as the ground falls away. True to good design principles, Coore & Crenshaw give the golfer plenty of room to the left to work balls in and the carefully conceived green contours help feed balls to the right hole locations. Given the site’s altitude, holes of this length are a fine way for the architect to insure that the golfer hits in a range of clubs into greens.

Lake Tahoe is straight over the mountains ahead and when the wind comes off it, this already tough one shotter becomes a beast.

The sloping ground high left of the green is the golfer’s friend; the sloping ground low right is NOT!

Fifth hole, 335 yards, Conundrum; After the steep drop at the third, the fourth takes the golfer to the lowest spot on the course. Both the third and fourth holes enjoy stirring qualities and needed to be built. Nonetheless, a challenge from here for Coore & Crenshaw was how to get the golfers back up on this walking friendly golf course. The risk is that the architect builds holes that play too hard because of their uphill nature, leaving the golfer feeling dejected and worn out. Avoiding that mistake, they designed as the next two holes a short par four and reachable par five, both with teasing qualities that are fun to play.

As seen from the right of the fairway, options abound at the short fifth. Can the golfer carry the two left bunkers that are on the direct tee to green line? If so, he’ll enjoy just a flip wedge into an open green. Or perhaps lay up near the base of those bunkers where the fairway affords a level stance and the same fine angle? Of course, the easiest drive is to the middle of the wide fairway but that means avoiding the tiny central bunker seen above. Though its footprint is small, Coore & Crenshaw massaged the surrounding land so that it does nothing but funnel balls into it, thus making it play effectively much bigger.

Sixth hole, 515 yards, Turning Point; Sharing some similarities with the great fourth at Bethpage Black, this three shotter swings left and the golfer isn’t aware from the tee just how much the hole climbs. Ala Tillinghast at Bethpage, the bunkers that were cut into the upslope of the fairway give the hole its strategic merit.

A draw is the friend of any right handed golfer on the dogleg left sixth yet he needs …

… to be careful of this bunker on the inside of the dogleg as well as …

… this one farther ahead that is eighty yards short of the green.

Alas, as seen from short front right, the sixth green features a fearsome amount of back to front pitch as well as a false front. Just being near the green in two is little guarantee of obtaining the desired birdie.

Seventh hole, 460 yards, Relentless; After a couple of potential birdie holes, the golfer faces this brute. Despite the unyielding nature of the uphill approach shot, one of the most fun green contours greets the golfer, namely a three foot plus rise in the back right corner of the green that helps acts as a brake and propels approach shots back toward central hole locations. This is a fine example of Coore & Crenshaw using what nature gave them (i.e. a natural saddle for the body of the green) while also enhancing it for golf by the use of this mound to help the golfer on this frequently downwind hole.

Though uphill, the prospect standing on the seventh tee is pleasing rather than daunting.

The saddle green collects balls toward the middle of the putting surface and helps make this uphill hole a reasonable proposition for most golfers.

Eighth hole, 170 yards, Deception; After three successive uphill approach shots that require precision, the golfer rightly takes comfort when he steps onto this tee and sees a downhill hole whereby the high right side of the green surrounds can be used to gather shots onto the putting surface.

Lining up the eighth hole with this view was a shrewd move by the architects.

Properly judging the broad breaks in the eighth green is tricky business.

Ninth hole, 445 yards, Gunsight;Coore & Crenshaw are in the enviable position of being selective for whom they work, only undertaking two or three projects at any one time. Apart from seeing potential in the property, they have to sense a commitment from the owners toward long term quality. They enjoyed that here in spades and one design example is in the effort to pull the tongue of the fairway over the crest of the hill so that the golfer enjoys a good view.

The sandy soil, rocks, and native grasses provide wonderful contrast against the verdant fairway. As the golfer walks around the bend …

… one of the most unforgettable views on the course unfolds. Note the red flag and how much putting surface is seen above it, a sure indication that this is one extraordinary green!

As seen from behind, the forty-eight long yard ninth green features over six feet (!) of slope from back to front, the most ever on a Coore & Crenshaw course.

Though sub-four hour rounds are the norm, the open air halfway house above the tenth tee may prove too inviting to pass by.